Pot taxes: June best month yet for recreational sales in Colorado

DENVER — June was the best-selling month yet for recreational pot in Colorado, with $24.6 million in total sales, according to state tax collections reported Friday.

Clarification: The Cannabist has changed the way it calculates 2014 monthly marijuana sales numbers because of new information obtained from the state of Colorado. Past projections were updated in this story on Nov. 11, 2014, via our new formula.

Recreational pot sales were up more than 19 percent from May sales, an increase likely attributable to more stores opening.

Since January, Colorado has reaped $29.8 million from marijuana, according to June collections reported by the state Department of Revenue. That figure includes taxes, licenses and fees from both medical and recreational pot.

In January, Colorado’s statewide sales tax on medical pot produced nearly twice the taxes produced by recreational pot. By June, the statewide 2.9 percent sales tax from medical pot brought in less than 20 percent more than the same tax on recreational weed.

Estimates for how much tax revenue legal weed would produce varied widely, with no preceding legal pot taxes on which to guess sales.

An estimate sent to Colorado voters last year projected the annual tax collections from sales and excise taxes on recreational pot at $70 million a year. And in February, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper sent lawmakers a budget request that projected some $98 million in pot taxes this fiscal year, which began in July.
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